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ERIC +TAMASIN START A DIALOGUE..

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Industrial Animal Farming involves appalling cruelty to sentient beings. Today the Dairy Industry is justas arm of the Meat Industry. BKWSU should be vegan: vegetarian doesn't cut it any more.

Recently Eric, a long time BK associate in the UK, wrote a passionate appeal to Sr Jayanti saying
why he felt BKWSU should embrace a vegan diet. He has started a Facebook page 'BK World Vegan' and you can read his letter there.The conversation has been happening for a while, and below is an email written by Dr Tamasin Ramsay in May 2012 in an
exchange of emails among some in the Brahma Kumaris International Green Team. BKWSU says it is 'following the highest principles'...perhaps following a vegan diet could be one more 'highest principle' ? Even though BK
celebrates that 'Celibacy is True Vegetarianism', one of our favourite slogans, could Veganism be an even Truer Celibacy

Hi everyone,

I would like to support the dairy conversation too. We had an interesting conversation at the
UN a few weeks ago. We offered a visiting brahmin a bagel (from a store). She refused, as she doesn't eat any food prepared outside. Yet she wanted milk in her coffee. Luckily we use organic milk but - even when the milk is organic - the reason we get the
milk in the first place is because the baby calves - who the milk is for - are taken for slaughter.

This inspired a conversation among all of us. Our principles are based on the idea of
non-violence. On one hand we have strict disciplines about who cooks our food. Even if it is vegan many brahmins won't eat food that is prepared by someone else. Yet, food that contain dairy products that directly support and fund the cycle of animal slaughter
are okay and offered to God and eaten.

The way dairy products were produced in the 1930s Subcontinent was undoubtedly very different than the industrial animal farming we have today. But
why do we have the principles that we have? Is it to maintain tradition? Or to live non-violently? I think these are important questions. Presumably Baba gave us our principles so we could learn to live as karmically gently as possible, with as much benevolent
impact and as little malevolent impact as possible in our lives. As the world changes, should we change in certain ways to maintain the underlying principles of peace and non-violence?